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Khan Academy Launches Computer Science Curriculum
joabj writes "Expanding beyond math and the physical sciences, Khan Academy has added a set of computer science courses to its popular collection of learn-at-home instructional videos. For the project, Khan tapped jQuery creator John Resig, who chose JavaScript as the first language to teach students. The initial set of tutorials cover drawing, programming basics, animation and user interaction."
Queue Javascript bashing in 3...2....1....
JavaScript can be an ugly language to work with, but the interactive editor they have looks really good and nicely works around all the issue one frequently runs into when using raw JavaScript (catches missing semicolon, catches typos of function names, allows editing color values via GUI, automatically runs the code on each change, etc.).
Khaaannnnnnnnnnn
Every language has its ups and downs. Javascript has the advantage that it bears some similarities to non-scripting languages and will produce instant results without getting too heavily into theory.
Name a language that is easier to get started in. You already have a browser that runs Javascript, regardless if you're on MacOS, *nix, or Windows (or whatever system you use most likely), now all you need is a text editor, which is built in on most systems. I don't know of any other language that doesn't require you to download and install some sort of compiler, interpreter, SDK, or whatever, all of which are barriers to entry. Plus, you have the advantage of using one of the most widely used languages on a platform that can distribute your code very easily and very portably.
You may not like Javascript--and granted, as a language, it's got plenty of warts. (Note that you can fix a great deal of these warts on modern browsers by simply including a "use strict" declaration at the top of your code). But it's a great language to start out in, if for no other reason than that the start-up cost is very close to negligible, and it's a useful language that enjoys a level of ubiquity that most other languages only dream of.
.
Real Programmers must spend their first year writing Pascal code to create hypothetical schedules for students at a university, followed by implementing every data type in a fat textbook from "Associative Array" to "Weight-Balanced Tree." Second year, the same thing - in Scheme. Final year, same thing - in assembler - and with runtime complexity proofs.
Congratulations, the both of you remaining are done.
What is this? Use of libraries? Graphics? User interaction? Heresy I say!
Khan tapped jQuery creator John Resig, who chose JavaScript as the worst language to teach students.
FTFY
Oh please. Visual basic. Intercal. Assembly language / raw machine code. Cobol. Pascal. Awk !
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Self-study hyperlinks and take a look at the (free) wealth of info Khan has out there. If interactivity is your thing, the forums are far busier than office hours were in my university STEM classes.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
There's something to be said for being able to make changes and see the updates in real time. When you're first learning especially, and when its just the most basic of basics, that's huge.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
His book Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja got me to love JavaScript. He wrote the framework that made JavaScript a pleasure and now he is educating young people. I only have one man-crush and it is on John Resig.
Its definitely true. Can we just use government public education money to build facilities to enable kids to log on to Khan Academy? I think that'd be a huge improvement.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Awesome. I'm going to make everyone I know watch these. Time to get rid of the "Programming is just typing!" school of thought. And maybe teach some people how to think in new ways.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Then why not something like Smalltalk? Javascript is unsuited to this task. In fact, I'm having a hard time thinking about a more unsuitable language. Maybe Brainfuck?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"Oh please. Visual basic. Intercal. Assembly language / raw machine code. Cobol. Pascal. Awk !"
Nearly 20 years after the class I still cringe thinking about it.
Extra medication for all!
With the exception of COBOL those might be fine things to teach kids. They get the basics down without corrupting their ideas. It's pretty easy to go from basic to something like Java because you just relearn everything and the better structures mean you like it more and don't have to unlearn all the crap you learned. You just learn an entirely different form. You're not going to corrupt somebody's ideas by having them write out a factorial program in assembly.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
I love my job. I love the internet & online teaching. Why spend money when you don't have to? :-) (I also love all the other free stuff online like magazines & audiobooks & music & news & .....)
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Smalltalk? Are you kidding? GTFO! Smalltalk is the ugliest thing in the world, ugggggh. Please don't force messaging on newbies, that shit is awkward as hell. Smalltalk is what lead to this annoying world we live in where you have to write so much obj-c. Uggggh.
At least Javascript is just simple C scripts.
But really, I'd start on Python, Ruby, C, or BASIC, depending upon your inclination.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
It also has a number of rather large disadvantages: requiring an understanding of closures, no real notion of classes (objects are just glorified key-value stores), implicit variable scoping, implicit insertion of semicolons (in ways that can actually cause errors in some cases), and the confusing (ab)use of the plus operator for string concatenation... and that's just the language itself. As soon as you start adding in the brain damage that is the DOM, it quickly becomes one of the worst programming languages you can possibly use to teach young minds, posing a very real risk of turning them off to programming rather quickly as soon as they try to step outside the narrow confines of the lecture material.
Want to make someone swear off programming for good? Make them write any sort of complex web-based text editor using ContentEditable. It makes my i386 assembly days seem sane by comparison; you spend more than 99% of your time working around bugs in one browser or another, and less than 1% of your time actually writing code that actually does something useful.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Why, exactly is this the case? Why can't you teach algorithms or architecture or clean design in Javascript? Interfaces are tricky, sure; at best you have to resort to something like duck typing in asserts if you want to be sure that something implements an interface, but the rest seems completely doable in JS.
LOGO, then BASIC then whatever you want but that's the way I'm planning to teach my son. LOGO gives instant gratification and BASIC is well, as easy to understand as a Turning complete language can probably be.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Yeah, IMO the best method (more or less what I did):
BASIC -> python / ruby / javascript / shell script -> Visual Basic -> Java/C# -> C++ -> C
Then you're free to try crazy things like smalltalk, obj-c, haskell, brainfuck, etc. on your own.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
I like Javascript, it offers some very elegant ways to solve complex problems, but it's definitely not a language for a beginning programmer.
Javascript makes it very easy for a programmer to hang himself and requires a lot of self-discipline and knowledge of what features to use and which to ignore.
I rarely use Perl or Python, but those would probably be far better languages to start with.
Java and C# are rather clean too, but perhaps a bit too complex to start out with.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
iTunes U has a whole series of videos on Introduction to Algorithms from MIT OpenCourseWare. The videos can also be found from MIT here.
Before you blindly dis' javascript, listen to Crockford
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz7KL7ZirZc
"Lisp in C's clothing"
"Lousy Implementations" to blame
And the prototype model is more pragmatic and less crazy than the object-fetishists will ever admit. You can do functional-style programming in javascript pretty well too.
Could it be that javascript is a language whose time has come, and the Khan academy have made a smart choice? Let's face it - it wouldn't harm to have more well-trained javascript programmers.
Which part of "Academy" confuses you?
Name a language that is easier to get started in
C
I don't know of any other language that doesn't require you to download and install some sort of compiler, interpreter, SDK, or whatever, all of which are barriers to entry.
You are allegedly learning "computer science" or at the very least "computer programming". Being able to perform rudimentary tasks, such as file download and software installation on a computer is a reasonable prerequisite.
Just as someone taking a course in "toaster repair" or "toaster design principles" should already be familiar with toaster operation.
Plus, you have the advantage of using one of the most widely used languages on a platform that can distribute your code very easily and very portably.
Because after a few course hours on Javascript your main concern is how to distribute your apps? That's pretty optimistic. ;)
The problem with javascript is 2 fold:
a) its a pretty warty language that's easy to hang yourself with, that's not a good teaching language.
b) the DOM is still pretty messy as a platform. Javascript on its own isn't the worst thing in the world, but the last thing you want for while your are teaching programming fundamentals is to get side tracked by some browser specific DOM issue.
The benefits of javascript that you highlighted are what make it a good language for consumer application development. But that is orthogonal to being a good language for learning how to program.
The fact that its everywhere really has no bearing on it being any good to learn with.
I'd honestly recommend anyone serious about learning to program start with something with a strong IDE (code formatting, syntax highlihgting) and an integrated debugger, good variable watch windows, good code stepping tools, accurate complilation error reporting, compilation warnings (unreachable code etc; assignment where equality testing is likely, etc), ability to set breakpoints/conditional breakpoints, and so forth.
Keep the focus on writing code, and watching it run.
A text editor and a browser and some "developer plugins"
is simply NOT a good learning environment, nor a good development environment. It may be what a lot of us are stuck with in the real world, and it maybe everywhere but that's not important.
if for no other reason than that the start-up cost is very close to negligible
Any number of languages and environements are free Eclipse for Java; Visual Studio Express for C#.
Like many of us here I self taught myself programming with Turbo Pascal after graduating from BASIC. And I consider Turbo Pascal to have been pretty much an ideal teaching language and environment.
The university I went to taught its first year programming in Modula-2; which in hindsight was a fine teaching language. (The language itself was fine, the debugging tools we had access to were non-existent).
Looking at the curriculum now, it appears they've updated to Python. I don't personally care for python as a language due to my objection to semantic whitespace, but that aside, I'd say its a decent teaching language and environment.
I disagree with Kahn calling these Computer Science courses, but I have to admit that I am at a loss as to what to call them. Computer Fundamentals perhaps?
It is a disservice to those looking at these to think that Computer Science is making an iPhone app or game. It really trivializes how powerful computers are and the concepts they embody.
Average Intelligence is a Scary Thing
Name a language that is easier to get started in.
CoffeeScript. Granted, it introduces an additional dependency (CoffeeScript) on what is otherwise the simplest and easiest development platform. Which leads me to the following:
You already have a browser that runs Javascript, regardless if you're on MacOS, *nix, or Windows (or whatever system you use most likely), now all you need is a text editor, which is built in on most systems. I don't know of any other language that doesn't require you to download and install some sort of compiler, interpreter, SDK, or whatever, all of which are barriers to entry. Plus, you have the advantage of using one of the most widely used languages on a platform that can distribute your code very easily and very portably.
You may not like Javascript--and granted, as a language, it's got plenty of warts. (Note that you can fix a great deal of these warts on modern browsers by simply including a "use strict" declaration at the top of your code). But it's a great language to start out in, if for no other reason than that the start-up cost is very close to negligible, and it's a useful language that enjoys a level of ubiquity that most other languages only dream of.
^^^ This. This is the reason (a really good reason) to use JavaScript as an introductory programming language with virtually zero barrier of entry (in terms of development env. setup.)
Obviously, people will complain - argh, real devlupers use <insert toolchain> with <insert IDE/editor/whatever>. And on a real CS-oriented, full-blown and complete programming course, this is true. But we need to notice that Khan's materials are not full-blown courses, but tutorials with the explicit aim of being as accessible to the masses as possible.
Whether this (and/or the choice of JavaScript) will turn people unsuitable for programming into legions of useless code monkeys is a non-issue. After all, the typical CS programs at brick-n-mortar universities have been producing useless code monkeys since the dot-com.
What a system of programming tutorials as implemented by Khan's academy will do, however, is to make the learning of programming more accessible to those that already have the potential of being good developers. Perhaps this could reach them early on before they finish their secondary education (or allow currently enrolled CS-students to use them as add-ons to their formal curriculum.)
JavaScript is a god-awful language, but its development setup makes it a decent first-language. Yes, it does not have true OO, but neither did BASIC. And good and bad developers will become so whether they use JavaScript, BASIC or Haskell (yes, there are atrocious Haskell programmers.)
Different educational institutions have different goals. If you want to go be a programmer and hack source code to make games, apps, real world things, etc. than traditional University education is probably not for you. Unless you are writing a physics engine from scratch, your use of math is probably limited and often CS degrees require a lot of math. Remember that the S in CS stands for science. This is where the University education plays a role. They want to mould students to become scientists, researchers, and professors. A good portion of the science and research material requires strong mathematical backgrounds and im my experience doesn't require the ability to be a super elite programmer. Hell, lots of great ideas are proven and tested with MATLAB scripts. This also applies to the concepts such as runtime analysis and algorithm complexity that are core to developing and proving new approaches and systems. I applaud Khan for it's attempt, but unless there is a heavy math focus later in the curriculum, then they should advertise it as a programming class, not a CS class.
Ruby or Python.
There is still no finer introduction to computer science than Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Abelson and Sussman. Also, be sure to watch the videos.
Computer science is about processes and structures, not computers, and not programs. LISP is still the ideal vehicle for learning about the important parts.
On a personal note, a friend of mine had a CS 101 intro course some years ago that was Javascript based. It was absolutely terrible. I know that it was terrible, because I ended up re-teaching him each of the concepts using random old textbooks that I had lying around. He had no problem learning concepts in other languages (Fortran, BASIC, C, even some MIX when I used Knuth) and then applying them to back to the Javascript that he had to do the problems in.
I know that Javascript wasn't entirely to blame there, but it sure didn't help. But why try to polish that particular turd?
See that "Preview" button?
Name a language that is easier to get started in. You already have a browser that runs Javascript, regardless if you're on MacOS, *nix, or Windows (or whatever system you use most likely)
Not if you haven't installed a full UI, you don't.
Most non-GUI browsers don't do javascript.
I don't know of any other language that doesn't require you to download and install some sort of compiler, interpreter, SDK, or whatever, all of which are barriers to entry.
The shell you use is also a full language with an interpreter. No installation needed in linux/unix, because there will always be a shell. Even on embedded systems.
And I've seen programs written in shell that are quite large and advanced.
Why use shell? Ease of maintenance, more than anything.
If you have a bottleneck, singling out that part for a compiled program that can be called with parameters or piped from a shell is the Unix/Linux toolbox way. Embedding the framework too is not.
You need them if you put the sequence on the same line:
alert(1) alert(2)
will not work, but
alert(1)
alert(2)
will. The language does not require a semicolon there and it is not a mistake to omit it. This is a deviation from the "type of whitespace doesn't matter" style of C style languages, but since it allows the semicolon in these places, what's the problem? You can make the type of whitespace irrelevant if you always use semicolons, or you can make whitespace "semantic" by omitting them.
I felt that same way about "semantic whitespace" 12 years ago when I first learned python. The idea just reminded me of too many crawling horrors like RPG and FORTRAN on punch-cards (#include <std_you_kids_get_off_my_lawn.h>) but seriously, an hour into it and you don't even notice it any more. It's really just enforcing what you should be and probably already are doing in C/Perl/C++/Java etc.
If you haven't really given python a go, I'd really encourage you to do so and don't let the "whitespace thing" stop you from trying it. I find it a fun language to work in. It works well on small projects and scales up fairly well. YMMV, of course.
careful, you are stepping on some toes, saying that free market works. This doesn't fly here, on /.
I'd definitely recommend C as a starting point for anybody serious about learning how to program. You can do high level stuff (pointers, functions). low level (bit manipulation) and everything in between. Also C is the starting point for so many other languages. The knowledge picked up could be extended to Java, C++, C# pretty quickly. If C is considered too cumbersome, Python would be an excellent choice. The clean coding style required definitely builds good habits. But, God Forbid, don't start with Javascript !
Assembly language
Actually, I have, in fact, taught students Assembly language as their first language.
It was a bit of a fluke of scheduling as they were first year engineers and had to cover C++, MATLAB and microcontrollers (i.e. assembler) in the first year. Due to the number of students and sizes of the labs, some of them happened to get assembler first.
It's actually not a bad way to start It depends very much on the student.
Some of them click with high level languages and can get going straight away. Some of them seem unable to grasp how the magic incantations on the screen correspond to anything tangible. Those ones tend to click with assembler much more, since it is much more direct. There's nothing hidden, nothing magic. Each instruction corresponds to flipping some gates in a predictable manner.
here's no awkward things like variables. Nothing like reference semantics which are really quite hard to grasp without understanding pointers. Instructions just move a fixed number of bits from one slot to another. In the case of something like a small PIC, the manual is thick, and but very complete and a person can have a grasp of the entire system (peripherals aside) in one go. And the apparently strange design decisions always have a good, solid reason behind them (always cost).
Once they have a grasp of ASM, you can explain the basic concepts of C by pointing out how you would translate a for-loop into a bunch of compares and jumps. For certain ways of thinking it then becomes much more obvious.
In other words, don't knock assembler as a first language. It's not for everyone, but then neither are high level languages.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
This really doesn't sound like "computer science" when you read the description. Where are algorithms, data structures, computability, complexity theory, etc? Programming != computer science. Even if they really meant that they were teaching programming, teaching a fad language used at an application level (not same as high level language) is not really the best way to teach programming. And what does "drawing", "animation", and "user interaction" have to do with programming or computer science?
Way to go Khan to dumb down computing even more than it already is.
Why do you need one that's easy to get started in? Khan Academy labeling itself as "advanced topics simplified for busy people"? Does it teach physics and calculus the same why by skipping the hard stuff?
My objection to semantic whitespace is that it frequently gets trashed when doing copy/paste type operations to and from other sources.
Its also more fragile when doing code maintenance, refactoring, editting, etc.
I had to use "semantic whitespace" pre-Python on Occam. It was very painful because I was using VI and it insisted on optimizing and sticking in tabs if I shifted lines, and I had to hunt down the settings to fix this (back then docs on vi were scarce to nonexistent). Emacs similarly wanted to put in tabs by default and I just didn't have the patience at the time to come up with an Occam mode for it. My overall impression was that the spacing was an interesting idea _experimentally_ but that actual practical use showed that it was impractical. The only apparent benefit was enforced indentation, for those very few people who had yet to learn to indent code.
Python overall is ok, but today seems dominated by style purists, plus I tend to avoid absolutely everything in life that is surrounded by rabid fans who proselytize.
You NEED to teach assembler at some point or you end up with graduates who are unable to understand the basic computing model. That doesn't mean they ever need to use it in a job but if they don't know it they will be impaired and possibly end up like the useless sorts of programmers who don't think efficiency is important or that you can solve it by getting faster computers.
Different educational institutions have different goals. If you want to go be a programmer and hack source code to make games, apps, real world things, etc. than traditional University education is probably not for you.
Real world things? Like database engines, operating system kernels, compilers, enterprise distributed systems, parallel computing, algo-trading, animation/rendering engines that must run in uber-clusters? Yeah, sure, a CS education is not probably not for you </rolls eyes>
Unless you are writing a physics engine from scratch, your use of math is probably limited and often CS degrees require a lot of math.
Been working on software (both commercial/enterprise, systems development and for the defense sector), and in each I've had to constantly use CS-related mathematics to do my work. Even on the commercial sector, I've had to use numerical analysis (Lagrance interpolation polynomials to approximate performance behavior as a function of incoming traffic), probability/statistics and what not. The careful selection of algorithms is something that you can do blindfolded if you have a good grasp of limits, convergence and divergence, and pretty much the bulk of discrete mathematics and combinatorics.
Barring the commonly trivial, like slapping a web page on front a db table, Unless the most complex thing you ever do is slapping web pages on front of a database table, you cannot simply do that in the real world without a grasp on CS mathematics. Heck, one doesn't even need a BS degree for that. I know that because I started my coding career with a AA (and worked my way towards a BS in CS and the grad school.)
Once the level of complexity or size (or system longevity) increases, a firm notion, however implicit, of CS-math is essential. And it is typically lacking "in the streets". And that is why we see so much underperforming crap in the so-called real world despite the facts that we have known for more than two decades how to do coding of a sufficient quality.
Oh nooo, we do not need mathematics to work in the real world. And then these code monkeys cannot understand why cartesian SQL queries are a no-no; or why using a retardedly synchronized java.util.HashTable is a goddamned stupid idea when a java.util.HashMap; or why their clustered applications flood the network with UDP packets (a combinatorial problem).
The nicest (or actually stupidest) comment I've seen is when people tell me that if they do unit testing on everything, then their code is bug-free, or better yet, that their code is bug free because testing didn't find any bugs. Or, wait, it gets even better when these same folks ensure others that they have a process that allows their code to be bug free. Which is fucking impossible, mathematically impossible.
And so on they go, coding crap, like code monkeys flinging shit at their monitors, and packaging/selling whatever sticks. Fixing that crap makes for a good living in terms of OT (because someone has to be hired to do the cleanup, and it's a good pay). But by God, it does makes working with software a living nightmare sometimes.
Remember that the S in CS stands for science. This is where the University education plays a role. They want to mould students to become scientists, researchers, and professors.
No, they want to mold people, be it Computer Scientists or Software Engineers (and/or both) who can code themselves out of invariant-executing for-loops.
A good portion of the science and research material requires strong mathematical backgrounds and im my experience doesn't require the ability to be a super elite programmer.
Barring the naturally gifted (most of us aren't), there is no such thing as a super-elite programmer who does not have an explicit or implicit mathematical background. There are people who can write a lot of code and get shit done, but only for the immedia
In a field that is essentially less than 75 years old it seems specious to call a language that has been around and in heavy use for nearly 20 years a fad.
moreover, as part of web 2.0 is seems to have kicked Silverlight and Flash's collective asses
and it's extensions into JSON seem to ensure that it will be around for another 20 years
Maybe javascript != computer science, but it is certainly a programming language that is widely used and probably an easier introduction thatn perl/php/c/java
getting a computer to do anything at all is major step for a beginner -why do you think logo with its drawing is such an attractive tool to teach kids?
-I'm just sayin'
Let me tell you where I'm coming from ... I hated JavaScript ... HATED IT ... for ten years, I endured it. A while back, I decided to finally wrap my head around it and actually study it the same way I studied languages like Java, C, and Objective C. Once I dropped the notion that it wasn't a class based language and that I needed to think differently in order to use it, I found it remarkably freeing.
In fact, I grew so accustomed to it that I actually find class based languages constricting.
Yes, it does have some dangerous gotchas, so the trick is to avoid those areas of the language, and then use static analyzer like JSLint for backup. It also helps to "use strict" on all your scripts
The true irony is once I've come to enjoy the old dog, I've decided to move out of development. Maybe next lifetime :)
Does anybody know what the player requirements are?
The presentation style courses hang at "Loading audio..." for me. Chrome, chromium or iceweasel on Debian wheezy.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
This is the 2nd mention of the Khan "Academy" in the last week or so.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
To be fair, the way you worded it disinclines me to agree with you. Perhaps "they could use a different language so as to teach those skills" would enable people to "comprehend" your post better.
~Jarmihi
The problem is that novice programmers will struggle with the language most of the time and will not see the things actually taught. A language for teaching must stand in the way as little as possible, be clear, orthogonal, little clutter, etc. The best for teaching algorithms and data-structures I have seen so far was Haskell. After the students have actually understood the concepts, and have seen one language, move to C and teach them about the other side, but keep using the same data-structures and algorithms taught with Haskell. All those that survive this will be able to separate solution and tool used afterwards. They will be prepared to deal with atrocities like Java, because they will be able to design solutions in the abstract and only then map it to the concrete tool.
Teaching a language is a very small part of the problem. But even that can easily be messed up. The problem with my proposed approach is not the students, but the challenge to find an instructor actually competent enough to do it that way.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
What does childhood have to do with it? I thought Khan Academy tought serious academic subjects? This doesn't sound like a serious subject, it sounds like overly broad introduction to something not really at all like computer science.
Desktop / admin IT work needs a other name then CS.
As some people think that CS = ALL IT or sys admin / desktop work.
When you also have MIS / tech / trades schools (that have differnt over all names for there tracks for there courses)
Also there are a lot of NON degree classes out there as well that just go on there own.
In principle, yes. In practice, it's a heck of a lot harder to properly document and verify the expected behavior of code if you have to write complex regular expressions just to get a complete list of all the different possible keys. I've fixed bugs in Perl code (which obeys that same design principle) where some subtle misbehavior was caused by a simple typo in the name of a key—an error that went undetected for months, yet would have been caught instantly in any programming language that requires you to actually define your classes.
It is one thing to understand what's happening at lower layers of abstraction. It is quite another to provide no abstraction whatsoever, requiring the programmer to do significant portions of the work that the compiler should be doing for you. There's no good reason to take on that unnecessary cognitive load if you can prevent it by simply choosing a language that's a little bit more rigorous. Granted, a language can be too rigorous, but JavaScript is so far on the other side of that line that you can't even see the line from there....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Real Programmers must spend their first year writing Pascal code [...]
Okay, I'll bite.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
the problem isn't that it helpfully adds semicolons where you forgot to add them. that would be great if it's all that it did. however, the problem is that it sometimes adds semicolons just when you don't want it to add them. what's worse is that it's impossible to know the difference between the two unless you're familiar with the language spec.
for example, like to word-wrap long lines in your code? be careful, javascript might just put a semicolon before your line break. in C all whitespace in code is equivalent, not so in javascript, sometimes.
And what does "drawing", "animation", and "user interaction" have to do with programming or computer science?
What does computer science has to do with "drawing", "animation", and "user interaction"?
\m/
It also has a number of rather large disadvantages: requiring an understanding of closures
Why is this bad?
I think closures are an important fundamental concept to understand, they help you think about what is going on when a program runs at a whole other level...
And yes I think they are good to start getting a handle on at the outset of learning.
Closures do not have to be hard to learn at all; an introduction to CS at Rice University used Scheme and taught closures to introductory students.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But no true Scotsman would be caught dead writing JavaScript!
(Before you flame, I should mention that I've been using it myself since 1997, and it's still my first true love amongst programming and scripting languages.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
"Computer Science Curriculum"
Teaching basic coding skills is not computer science. Even teaching more advanced coding skills is not computer science. It's teaching coding.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Hence the YMMV at the end. No worries. :-)
I have to agree that this is a legitimate complaint. For example, posting python code here on slashdot is a virtual impossibility it seems.
The good news is that our documentation and editors are much better these days, so those pains are much lessened in today's working environment.
I hear you with respect to the rabid fandom. I try to avoid evangelization, but also approach such discussions with my preferences and biases stated up front. I dig python, you may not, and I'm totally cool with that! :-)
Do you people have CS degrees and know what they are, or are you just going around calling people elitist?
Yes, there is a typical curriculum that one expects from a decent university CS program, and no, it does not include "animation". I'll take an algorithms course any day over learning how to draw from the guy who created jQuery.
Not disagreeing with your analysis of what JS does... But seriously, if you hard word wrap, you're a moron.
Nothing much... what's your point? Is it that what people want to learn is drawing, animation and user interaction? If so, they want to do a programming course, not a CS one. Just like the academy is teaching a programming course, not a CS one.
Semantic whitespace is the ultimate consequence of the myth of human-readable code.
Myth? Myth? Myth?
Yes, myth. I cannot read code without an editor -- it's just a series of hexadecimal codes until such time as the editor maps it to a character set. And those hexadecimal codes have to be interpreted from a series of bits by a computer, reconstructing them from binary digits according to the endianness used by the system. And those bits are determined by reading the polarity of tiny magnets.
All code editors now have bracket matching -- they understand code structure easier and quicker than we do as operators. Why should I indent? Why not have the editor do that automatically, thus highlighting logical flaws in my code?
I mean, when we copy and paste code, the indentation at the paste point could be quite different from the copy point. I imagine the best IDEs will by now do indentation correction on Python. As they should do. So why not let them handle and render all indentation?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
My opinion is that there is way too much hype surrounding this unvetted and unavailable material.
damn autocorrect...
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I'm not talking about hard word wrap, I'm talking about manually formatting lines. Here's a simple example, but there are many variations, some much subtler...
return
SomeLongExpression() +
AnotherLongExpression();
Yep, and it's there for the same reason as other entrenched bullshit is still around -- Not because it's any good at all, just because it's what we have available to work with. As someone who uses JavaScript as well as nearly all other "popular" languages, from C++ to Perl, to PHP, Assembly, I must say, JS is my least favorite to work with -- Let me just repeat that: I MAINTAIN PHP CODE, AND THINK JS IS WORSE!
It's a crappy language, with designs that needlessly screw performance, that was never intended to be used the way we NEED it to be used today. We'd be better off with ANY other scripting language. Hell, I'd rather use Lua in a browser than JavaScript. The only reason we use it is because nothing else has as broad support, not really on any merit of the language itself.
JavaScript is the Microsoft of "Web" Languages.
Yes, it does have some dangerous gotchas, so the trick is to avoid those areas of the language
No "the trick" is to get people to overlook the bullshit rather than use a better language or actually fucking fix it... If you have to avoid an area of the language then the language is BROKEN.
I completely agree. BASIC was my first language. C was my second, and before I could fully learn it I delved into Assembly.
It wasn't until Assembly that I met the man behind the curtain, we shook hands and he imparted his "wizardry" to me. I went back and mastered C in a week. All other languages became simply syntax rules and a new API -- A few weeks work to get proficient in the language and then just having API docs available. I can more quickly understand the high level languages like Haskel, C++, Java, etc. now that I know what the hell is actually going on.
I tried teaching my little brother JS, it didn't work out... So we tried C, he couldn't get "pointers" and their associated arithmetic. We tried Assembly and he took off! In my experience, the magic of higher level languages is only empowering if you grasp the sufficiently advanced technology on which the magic is based.
Additionally, since I can run an assembly program on a sheet of graph paper it's been astounding to see software patents being granted...
Well, if you define abstraction as myth, then all computing tasks are built on layers upon layers of myth. As a pro-Romanticist, I rather like your definition, frankly. There are even more layers of myth above your editor, as either the GUI or the character renderer turns those characters into a raster format to be fed across a signal line to the monitor, which will cause photons in a narrow but well-defined band of frequencies to be emitted, whereupon those photons are focused on your retina, activating rod and cone cells in your retina, that in turn activate feature detection neurons in your retina and visual cortex, which then get passed off to higher order brain centers that take this information and turn it back into the information that was stored.
And to bring it back down to less philosophical matters, yes, modern editors are all python aware and do a fine job of indenting for you if you are willing to accept the convention that the python no-op 'pass' will terminate a nested level. You bring up an interesting point about editors handling indentation, however. I think the reason why we don't is I think we as programmers like the idea of keeping our code in a form that can be read and understood by even the simplest tools. We could conceivably create a file format that has the indentation stored as an integer, followed by the line of code, and then just have our editors render it visually for us in the manner we prefer, then save it back out in the integer|line format. But I think a lot of programmers would chafe at that idea, and I don't think I could disagree with them. We already have holy wars over vi vs. emacs, Eclipse vs. NetBeans, Windows vs Mac vs Linux and whether a tab stop should be 2, 4, 8 or some other number of columns. :-)
I made a rocket ship for the man! ellipse(200, 330, 30, 100); ellipse(185, 370, 30, 30); ellipse(215, 370, 30, 30);